The word resilience comes from the Latin word 'resiliens', which means ‘to recoil or rebound’.
It was originally used when referring to a material that can return to its original shape after being stretched or compressed. Over time, the word resilience migrated to the field of human behaviour, in the way we deal with adversity. This is why we often think of resilience as being able to ‘bounce back’ from adversity, including changes, obstacles and problems. And to a certain extent resilience is about bouncing back and finding our feet.
But wait - there is more, so much more to being resilient.
Resilience includes learning from the adversity you have experienced, as well as the speed at which you recover from it. Resilience is about working through a difficulty, so that you can move forward, AND be better resourced for the next challenge that life throws at you.
What actually happens when we are resilient?
Lots. And it’s different for different people and in different situations.
We might be resilient when despite feeling the effects of the adversity, we are still able to have enough flexibility in our thoughts to see a different perspective. This new perspective changes everything … we suddenly feel a lightness as the ‘adversity load’ lifts, we feel like ourselves again but armed with the learnings of this new experience. Feeling motivated and self-confident, we are more inclined to deal well with the next obstacle. We have spent a minimal time or no time in that ‘lingering’ state - that place where we keep revisiting the adversity or the situation, over and over again, getting nowhere and not fully functioning.
When we are resilient, we have the capacity to remain flexible with our thoughts and behaviours, while we are faced with a life disruption or when we are under pressure. If we are resilient in a particular situation, we may feel the emotional effects of the disruption but can still think clearly in order to emerge from the effect of this disruption more able and wiser than we were pre-disruption.
Resilience might be when we’ve been able to get to this place of optimal functioning so often, that we barely react to obstacles or change or adversity. Life is good. We are thriving as we are spending more time in state where we are not triggered and affected by obstacles. So not only is getting back to fully functioning a reflection of our resilience, the speed at which we get back to ‘life is good’ is equally important to living a full life where you are the best version of you, as often as possible.
We may be faced with an extreme situation such as the end of a relationship or the death of a loved one, and we may need to linger a little longer to heal. In this case, resilience might be that you accept this but you know you will get back to feeling you again, albeit slightly later and changed from the experience. Here resilience is all about the belief that you will get back to ‘you’ - it might just take a little longer and you are OK with that.
A resilient You is presented with a disruption but the outcome is that life keeps moving forward with little time delay, you have learned from it and you feel great or even better post-disruption.
When are we resilient?
All day, every day.
Resilience is a quality we draw on all the time without realising it.
It is the ability to successfully restructure your day when things start changing.
It is the capacity to deal with a hurtful comment in the moment, so that it doesn’t ruin your day, week, month …
It is changing tact during a presentation to meet the audience’s needs, when you realise you got the audience all wrong.
It’s being able to think of a cancelled date as an opportunity to do something else that makes your heart sing, rather than seeing it as a ruined evening.
It might be the potential to see multiple perspectives, freeing us of the one perspective that knocks us over.
It might be dealing so well with the unpredictables that pop up during an Ironman or ultramarathon event, that you achieve the goal you set out for yourself.
It is any sort of obstacle or stressor you are able to overcome in a way that gets you back on track, feeling great.
What does a lack of resilience look like?
When there is a resilience gap in our arsenal, or we just don’t know how to move forwards, the elasticity of our thoughts has been depleted. It is replaced by a stiffness of thinking and behaving. We start to have emotions that undermine our self-confidence and our ability to connect with others. We lose our motivation and feel like we are stuck and don’t know how to start to get out of this ‘black hole’ feeling, where we linger, are unproductive, and do not feel like ourselves. We are all-consumed with the problem we are facing and linger much longer than we would like to. We are not thriving.
What resilience is not
Resilience is not about being ‘tough’. What doesn’t kill you might make you stronger, but not necessarily bullet-proof to unpredictable events because you just can’t predict your future events and all of the reactions to these events.
It is not about being toughened by what life has dealt you so you can tick the ‘I am invulnerable’ box.
Resilience is not a guarantee of armoured protection. However much is learned from adversity, we are still open to being knocked by the unpredictable. Sometimes, for whatever reason, we are also knocked by the predictable!
Think about it: dealing with a major disease doesn’t offer immunity against being knocked sideways by a minor car accident. Or being pragmatic in the face of a redundancy doesn’t immunise against being bowled over by the passing of a loved one, even though it was long-expected.
When we say ‘what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger’, we are implying some kind of magic power. What might actually be happening instead is that we become bitterly determined never to be affected by anything ever again. This is not resilience. Resilience is about being open to learning and growing from our experiences, resulting in being able to take risks because of a sense of being able to deal with the repercussions of that risk. Resilience does not protect us from adversity; it ensures we are able to manage our way through it.